Florida International University FIU Digital Commons Frost Art Museum Catalogs Frost Art Museum 10-15-1981 William T Wiley The iV sual Arts Gallery at Florida International University Frost Art Museum The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/frostcatalogs Recommended Citation Frost Art Museum, The iV sual Arts Gallery at Florida International University, "William T Wiley" (1981). Frost Art Museum Catalogs. 56. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/frostcatalogs/56 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Frost Art Museum at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Frost Art Museum Catalogs by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 338 0; !. I , May 2 to May 31, 1981 University Fine Arts Galleries School of Visual Arts Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32306 Oct. 15 to Nov. 25, 1981 Beth Coffelt Matthew Kangas Arts Visual Gallery John Perreault International Florida University Brenda Richardson Tamiami Campus Albert Stewart Miami, Florida 33199 Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Anderson Matthew and Wanda Ashe Mr. and Mrs. Gerald W. Bush Mr. and Mrs. Byron Cohen Delahunty Gallery, Dallas Des Moines Art Center Sarah Estribou-Franklin Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York Diana Fuller Dorothy Goldeen Graham Gund Hansen Fuller Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco Bob Hudson Elaine Horwitch Mr. and Mrs. William C. Janss David Lawrence Robert Mann Myra and Jim Morgan Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, Kansas Barbara Morris Ralph H. Perkins and Steven Smith Mr. and Mrs. C. David Robinson Robert A. Rowan San Francisco Museum of Modern Art William and Deborah Struve Walker Art Center Richard and Barbara Wallis Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Dorothy Wiley William T. Wiley Private Collectors Cover: THE BALANCE IS NOT SO FAR AWAY FROM THE GOOD OLD DAZE, 1970, watercolor and ink on paper, 22 x 30, Collection David Lawrence, Chicago <, In the 1960s, the Bay Area became the In 1979, the Walker Art Center in Through special support of the University "fountainhead" for an important shift in Minneapolis organized the exhibition, System, Florida State University has contemporary American art. Artists WILEY TERRITORY. The Walker become a major center for contemporary art working in the area began to achieve assembled for the first time a large body of in the Southeast. This exhibition forms a national attention for their "individual" information and works from the past ten part of the Fourteenth Annual Fine Arts approaches to making art and their years. What their effort has meant to our Festival, and acknowledgments at this time irreverance for prevailing art doctrines. exhibition is the accessibility to a great deal would not be complete without two very Their approaches became very contagious of information and material. We want to special ones. We want to express our thanks and indicative of growing attitudes that thank the staff of the Walker, and especially, to Dr. Bernard F. Sliger, President of the spread to other parts of the country and Graham W. J. Beal, curator of the University, for his efforts in gaining encouraged new audiences to become more exhibition, and Gwen Bitz, the registrar for additional support for the arts at Florida receptive to the possibilities of major art their assistance. State University and providing the funding being produced outside the art centers of the for the Festival. Also, thanks to Dr. Jerry L. Never has a more of Northeast. important aggregation Draper, Dean of the School of Visual Arts, works involving a development in whose understanding and support have There are many artists in Florida and contemporary art been assembled at Florida contributed more than anything else to the throughout the Southeast who continue to State University. Nothing is more difficult Galleries' objectives as an information and share similar attitudes in their artmaking for a collector than to part with works for a documentation center for contemporary art. and, in some measure, are influenced by the period oftime. We are grateful to the many developments that occurred in California. collectors as well as the museums and Again this year, we extend a special thanks The Fine Arts Galleries are pleased to galleries for their spirit in sharing their to the Friends of the Gallery for their present, for the first time in the region, an collections for the duration of this exhibition generous support. We are also grateful to the exhibition that deals with one of the most and helping us to reinforce our commitment University of South Florida for scheduling significant influences during this to a large and diverse audience in our exhibition later this year in Tampa. development, WILLIAM T. WILEY. contemporary art. Finally, a personal thanks to Secretary of William T. Wiley's art is an incredible range Writers have turned to a multitude of words, State, George Firestone, the Department of of ideas, materials and images with an hoping to see a little more clearly some State, the Division of Cultural Affairs, the amazing breadth and depth that aspect of Wiley's work. Many would agree Fine Arts Council, the National Endowment distinguishes him, as John Perreault writes, what inadequate stuff words prove to be for the Arts, a federal agency, and the ". .. a special artist and probably a great when compared to his ability to present to Florida Legislature for their continued "1 one. those who investigate his work a very confidence in our programming and their special experience. We are pleased to have support in making this exhibition possible. Nearly two years ago, the Galleries staff the opportunity to assemble five essays for began the organization of this exhibition of this catalog and express our thanks to the A.S. works. We our thanks extraordinary express additional authors and the publishers for to William T. Wiley for his trust, confidence their permission to reprint some of these and enthusiasm for our His presentation. investigations. collaboration has been an invaluable expenence. Of the Galleries staff: Janet Mauney for publicity, Sharon Collins for registration, This exhibition and accompanying catalog and Susan Parks, as secretary, have could only have been achieved through the contributed not only efforts necessary to the full of the staff, volunteers, cooperation accomplishment, but also patience, good advisors and the friends of the artist. many humor and wisdom under extraordinary of time and At the beginning of our plans and pressures responsibility. throughout the remarkable undertaking, A special thank you to Richard Hubbard, there has been one individual whose total my assistant and preparator, who gave not devotion, friendship and faith has gone . only his talents and energy, but also beyond the call of duty. Without Wanda enthusiasm to every aspect of the Hansen, agent, the exhibition Wiley's exhibition's organization. Also thanks to would not have been possible, and we Bill Celander, the technical staff and many our warmest thanks. express volunteers for their efforts in making the 1 John Perreault, "Wild, Woolly Wiley, "The Soho exhibition a success. Weekly News, November 8, 1979, p. 56 1 LAME AND BLIND IN EDEN, 1969, watercolor and ink on paper, 30 x 22, Collection Mr. and Mrs. Harry W. Anderson, Atherton, California 2 Mr. Unatural " "Funk, an exhibition at the University of mainstream art (even before the term others, and eventually I met Wiley and other California, Berkeley, in 1967, was a pivotal "alternative" became a widely accepted artists who became a stimulating part of my event in contemporary art. It not only substitute for "avant garde"). life in California. brought national attention to a particular A collective sensibility existed with the After meeting Wiley, making several visits group of artists working in the Bay so-called Funk artists; their forms to Forest and in a number Area-William T. Wiley, Robert Arneson, grew Knolls, partaking from a relaxed enthusiasm about the of with his I to Joan Brown, Bob Hudson and others-it gatherings friends, began creative process itself rather than from an understand what had attracted me to him. grew out of an anxiety about the lack of habitual inclination to follow fixed, external His works exude a sense of familiarity while support for their common interests as well as ideologies. Their art concerned itself with encorporating a wide range of images and a frustration with the current and pervasive 1 life as matter: and his content and are unlike aesthetic doctrines. everyday subject clever, silly, writing, style dumb, tactile, ironic concerns-all were those of any other American artist; they are At that time our national and international valid. Ideas became contagious and, intensely individual. Themes, puns, problems had placed American society in a therefore, mutually supportive. Joseph riddles, wit, humor, and iconography are state of flux stemming from an almost Raffael expressed to Peter Selz in 1973 that mixed to give everyday (down-home) feudal centralization mechanism in both his life in New York had been a function of autobiographical subject matter a certain politics and art. Art dogma and criticism being an artist; in San Francisco, his art specificity and poetic structure. The result is seemed exclusively devoted to the current became an outgrowth of Iiving.? From this a personal synthesis that reinforces all I have developments of minimalism and group, William T. Wiley emerged as seen in Wiley himself: his lifestyle, his conceptual art occurring in New York. Most impresario of this new and intensely offbeat experiences,· his obsessions, his predilections centered around art that was consciousness. vulnerabilities, his tenderness, his becoming less intensively expressionistic acceptance of everything as content for My first contact with this Bay Area theater and more formal and restrictive, either in artmaking.